As is well known and understood, one of the greatest joys of city youths in the summer occurs when the temperature rises to a point where someone opens up a fire hydrant. There, the youths run in front of, and through the hydrant discharge, usually under the control of some brave soul who crouches behind the open hydrant with a flat board, broom stick, or other device, so as to deflect the hydrant stream either to the left, to the right, forward, up or down, so that others may run through it. It is not uncommon, but usually the situation, to see such activities depicted on almost any summer night's television news program, or in the pictures in a newspaper the next day.
As is also well known and understood, such joy and enthusiasm is repeated during the summer in the suburbs, where the youths run under the spray produced in a backyard by an oscillating sprinkler, by a reciprocating sprinkler, or by a travelling-type sprinkler. It is equally well known and understood that this joy and enthusiasm just does not seem to exist in an environment where a steady stream of water is produced--either from a swimming pool sidewall, from a continuously running fountain-type display, or from a sprinkler system which maintains a continuous, unchanging pattern. Whether the enjoyment is from the implicit understanding of running through the spray of a hydrant illegally turned-on, or whether it is from the feeling of running in one's bare feet on grass in the backyard, under the sprinkler, in all probability the excitement generated results from the fact that the deflected water flow, or falling spray pattern is intermittent, and an anxiety results in just waiting for the pattern to reach the area where the youth, the child or the infant stands, jumps, or sits, awaiting the cooling effects or the circulating water.
Unfortunately, and for some unknown reason, this joy, excitement and anxiety does not carry over into adulthood, and the above-the-ground swimming pools available on the market today.